


Death Eater

by Eustacia Vye (eustaciavye)



Category: Harry Potter - Rowling
Genre: F/M, Gore, Guro, POV First Person, Surprise Pairing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2005-06-04
Updated: 2005-06-04
Packaged: 2017-10-06 19:26:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,566
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/56995
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eustaciavye/pseuds/Eustacia%20Vye
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Be careful what you wish for... sometimes you miss the fine print.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Death Eater

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the LJ community "darkones."

I will not shatter. I will not fall apart. I promised myself these things long ago, when everything else around me fell apart into fragments. I promised myself I would not be one of them, that I never would be one of them.

But I am.

And somewhere, I think I knew how to die. But somewhere along the way, I've forgotten how. I'm still here, still where I want to be yet don't want to be. Here I am, balancing on threads, trickily trying to twist them to my way.

The dark isn't nearly as cold as I had once thought, and not nearly as frightening. I just didn't want to bring everyone else down with me, as I wallowed in it, as I drowned in it, as I ate it all up. It's an ancient ritual, eating the heart of the thing you want to be, taking its essence into yourself. I'll never be free of it now, I realize that. It's now part and parcel of me, and for all that I tried to deny it, this dark anger and rage that simmers just beneath my skin will always be there. Rage and anger is the flip side to love, after all, and I have them all in spades. I have reason. I have control. I can be reasonable. I can be logical. I can be almost pure at times. I have the spark within somewhere. I just have to find it.

I gave away my soul, but it's long since stopped being worth anything. I've watched them all die, every last one of them, and I am the sole survivor.

I don't deserve to be.

I will not shatter. I will not break. I will not fall apart. I can't yet, I'm the last one.

It's hard when you have to look in the mirror and all you see is a bloody heart lying in your palm, sliding off into the darkness to join the others. But you learn to live with it; there's so much you could learn to live with if only you let yourself.

They never thought I was worth anything, they saw what they wanted to see and let me pass by without a second glance. They thought they bought me with my life, they thought it was all over, that all the resistance had bled from my veins.

No one understands what happened. I see it in their eyes, I see the way they look at me. They've always thought I've lost my mind, they didn't realize it was just easier that way. It's easier to put a silly name over a very real fear, it's easier to feel the touch of delirium at the corner of my consciousness. It's easy, it's painless, it almost doesn't matter.

I loved him. I did, though it's strange of me to say so. I never said it aloud, there was never time to and it wasn't worth anyone else's ears. I loved him with everything I had, all the worlds within me that lay unborn. I gave him hope when there was none, I have given him a purpose and an outlet and a body. And no one understands, they look at me and think I'm insane, no one understands what's happened.

I will not shatter. I will not break. I promised myself this long ago. Everything else fell apart, everyone else went mad. I'm the last of them left, I'm the last. I have to remain to remember, even if it's easier to let it all drift away with me.

I loved him above all else. When he fell, clutching at his head, screaming, screaming, I fell to my knees beside him. To destroy the dark was to take it inside, to house the evil somewhere it could be contained. I knew what he wanted me to do, we had talked about it in the midst of darkness. As other lives bled away for his cause, we lay in the dark together, skin to skin, pressed into a single purpose. We knew what he had to do. I gave him my soul because I didn't need it anymore. I didn't need to house my many worlds, and he needed it more than I did. I would have reached into my own chest and given him anything he wanted, if only he asked for it. But he never asked, it wasn't his way. He was so strong, and I loved him for it.

No one knew how important I was. I will not shatter. I will not break.

There is a time and a place for everything. There is a time and a name, a face for every heart, a soul for every spirit, a darkness for every fullness. This I know.

And I loved him. I loved him more than anything, more than life itself.

Someone had to cut the darkness from his heart. Someone had to make sure it never was released. Someone had to house it, someone had to make sure it would all end. I was the important one, I'm the one he told the secrets to, I'm the one that held his hand in the dark, the one that told him he would make it. I told him he would win, and he did. I told him, and I showed him the way, and I knew it would be done. He had always been very good at winning, always good at living. I cut my hands and let the blood begin to flow, we swore upon it that we would finish it properly, we would make it end.

I was the last, you see. The others didn't get that far, they had fallen along the path, they couldn't follow where we had gone. There was no turning back, we had no choice, we had to do what we did. We had to.

The magic sparked and crackled, the pain began, the darkness came down. It was too much, far too much, and we weren't ready for it. It shouldn't have happened that way, but it did, and it's so easy to look back and think it was inevitable. But he took it all in, he ate it all up, all of the darkness and evil and death. He had my soul in his hands, and he pushed it into himself to bottle up the pain, but it wasn't enough. I wasn't enough, I was never enough.

I had to do it, I had to take it out of him before it corrupted him, before everything that was bright and beautiful died.

I took the knife with slippery hands and I straddled him as he thrashed about, holding on to his head and screaming for me to make it stop. I loved him enough to do what was necessary, to cut the pain from him, to make it stop. The wind howled and whipped around me, the scent of blood rising up into me. I knew what I had to do, and my hands didn't shake once. I cut the sigils into his chest, then slid my hands inside. The screaming stopped abruptly, and he smiled at me, thankful, grateful. "Beautiful," he murmured at me, reaching for me with bloody hands. He had scratched his face, his temples, he had ripped up hair. And he smiled so beautifully, so wonderfully, the golden god amongst us all. "Thank you."

And his heart slid along my hands, into the darkness, falling until I caught it. And as he watched, I took that rage and ate it all up.

I thought it would be horrible, but it was all right. I felt it fill me, the emptiness and horribleness and the darkness. And then suddenly I knew where we had gotten it wrong. He should have given me his bright and shining soul, let the darkness fill the empty space, then fill it back with his light. But it was too late now, too late, and I had the emptiness within me with nothing to fill it back up because I had given him my soul. I had given him my heart, and I had to eat his to save him.

There's a world still left within me somewhere, hidden deep, that the darkness hasn't touched, and all the doctors in the world can't see. It's a place where the dark rage can't go, the last hidden part of me, the part that I have to live to keep.

Harry sleeps there, waiting for me to give him back his heart. And when the time is right, I will offer it back to him, a bright and shining jewel, the prize at the end of our fight. And he will give me that smile, and trace the sigils on my forehead, and unlock the magic trapped within that can resurrect him. And then he will take me away from here, where they don't understand, and we will see if I can resurrect the rest of us, if I'm strong enough to turn back time so that it will be perfect and shining again, all of left. I know this now, I know it. And when Harry is hale and whole, he will smile that beautiful smile, and he will thank me for helping him where no one else was able to.

"Thank you for being my death eater, Luna."


End file.
